anyone other than me
I could have been a taxi driver
picking up musicians from
Carnegie Hall
I could have been flipping a coin
dressed in zebra stripes
standing at the fifty-yard line on
Super Bowl Sunday
or just as easily stranded in Iowa City
waiting in line at Hamburg Inn No. 2
I could have been slam dunking
donuts into black coffee in
New York City like some beat cop
on Sunday morning
I could have been that priest
in the Exorcist novel
placing my hands on a child
and my faith in the Lord
I could have been a medic
or a mystic or a miracle worker
trapped inside any given war
these past thousands of years
or I could have been a starving child
looking for someone
like myself
to save me
january two thousand sixteen
copyright j matthew waters
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